cli-cheatsheet

helpful libraries and resources for building Node.js CLIs. Not a list of CLIs.

CLI Design Thinking

• 12 Factor CLI Apps (Blogpost, Talk): Jeff Dickey's list of requirements for UX.

• Heroku CLI Style Guide (Guide, Talk, Talk): Heroku's CLI Style Guide.

• CLI State Machines (Gist): My little thoughts on state management

Frameworks

• Commander: Built by TJ, used in create-react-app, vue-cli, and many others. Key feature: pluggability. Vorpal is another framework inspired by Commander and is seeking maintainers
• Oclif: Built by Heroku, used in Heroku and Salesforce CLI's. Key feature: pluggability.
• Sade: Built by lukeed, used in tsdx. Key feature: lightweight?
• Gluegun: Built by Infinite Red, used in Ignite and AWS Amplify. Key feature: templating/filesystem
• Ink: Built by Vadim & Sindre. Key Feature: React Components and Yoga Layout.
• Scritch: Built by Jamie, used at Eventbrite. Key Feature: compose multiple scripts regardless of language into one CLI.

Utility Libraries

Update Management/Nagging

• https://github.com/yeoman/update-notifier#readme

Context/Config

Context from filesystem/PATH

• https://github.com/npm/node-which Like running which: Find the first instance of an executable in the PATH.
• https://github.com/szwacz/fs-jetpack filesystem access
• https://github.com/sindresorhus/find-up search up the parents path for where files are located

Loading/Storing config

⚠️ Be aware of the XDG spec. Sindre's libraries use env-paths to get paths compliant with this.

• https://github.com/sindresorhus/conf simple config storing (maybe try conf-cli to manipulate if needed) the successor to configstore
• https://github.com/davidtheclark/cosmiconfig Find and load configuration from a package.json property, rc file, or CommonJS module. Check searchPaths to implement XDG spec compliance.
• https://github.com/jonschlinkert/data-store conf like datastore but in the shclinkerverse

🌟Input

• https://npm.im/enquirer (recommended)
• https://npm.im/inquirer
• https://npm.im/prompts
• https://npm.im/email-prompt

Argument Parsing

• https://npm.im/meow
• https://npm.im/arg
• https://npm.im/yargs
• https://npm.im/minimist

⚠️ Your framework may come with parsing built in

Command execution

• https://github.com/IndigoUnited/node-cross-spawn
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/execa

Spinners

• https://npm.im/ora (recommended)
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/cli-ux#cliaction
• http://npm.im/log-update

Templating

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/consolidate
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/ejs (Gluegun has this built in)
• https://github.com/amwmedia/plop
• Angular Schematics https://angular.io/guide/schematics
• Yeoman generator https://yeoman.io/

🌟Output

Coloring

• https://npm.im/chalk (recommended)
• https://npm.im/kleur
• https://npm.im/cfonts

Boxing

• https://npm.im/boxen
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/sign-bunny

Tables

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/cli-table
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/cli-ux#clitable

*Debug Logging

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/debug

Plugin/Release Management

• https://www.npmjs.com/package/live-plugin-manager
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/pacote (used in npm cli)
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/gh-release-fetch (very low level pull from github)

⚠️ None of these are offline-first. Keen on finding one that respects offline first.

Misc

• https://npm.im/stmux for tmux like UI
• https://npm.im/listr for progress lists
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/cli-ux general Heroku CLI utils including OS notification

Beginner Tutorials

• https://www.twilio.com/blog/how-to-build-a-cli-with-node-js